Boyfriend May Be Charged in Death of Yale Grad

Alyssa Newcomb

ABC News Blogs•June 23, 2012

Police are seeking criminal charges against the boyfriend of Marina Keegan, the Yale graduate who died in a rollover crash while the young man was behind the wheel but gained posthumous national attention when her inspirational final newspaper column, "The Opposite Of Loneliness," went viral.

Keegan's boyfriend, Michael Gocksch, has been summoned to Orleans District Court in Massachusetts on July 5, where a clerk will review charges of vehicular homicide by reckless operation and reckless driving. If probable cause is found, a criminal complaint will be filed against Gocksch, who had reportedly fallen asleep behind the wheel.

The couple, both 22, had just graduated from Yale days before the car accident. On May 26, with Gocksch in the driver's seat, the couple were en route to the Keegans' summer house in Wellfleet, Mass., when he lost control of the car. The Lexus hit a guard rail, spun across the road to hit the opposite guard rail, then rolled over twice.

Gocksch was uninjured, but Keegan died at the scene.

He was consoled by Keegan's parents days after the tragedy.

"We said this horrible accident was her fate," Tracy Keegan told ABCNews.com at the time. "Unfortunately, she could not throw two lives away, and she loved you."

"You can't go off course," Kevin Keegan told Gocksch. "To honor her, you need to live your life - to make a difference for others, to embrace life as she did."

Keegan's essay, "The Opposite Of Loneliness," had appeared in a special graduation issue of the Yale Daily News days before her death.

"We're so young. We're so young. We're 22 years old. We have so much time," she wrote.